Chairman of the provincial People's Committee Nguyen Van Linh and leaders of departments and sectors encouraged the enterprises in the province's industrial in the early year.

Improve the PCI Index

The results of PCI index is based on responses from enterprises and private enterprises in Bac Giang. Accordingly, Bac Giang province gained 62.2 points on a 100 point scale, up 4 points from the previous year and among top of the middle-level group. Thanks to the efforts of both government and enterprises, Bac Giang has continuously improved its ranking on PCI Report for five consecutive years.

Five years ago, Bac Giang’s ranked 49th and among the bottom of the middle-level group, after a long time of constant improvement, Bac Giang ranked 30rd among the 63 provinces and cities in 2017 PCI Report, up 3 places from the previous year. In Northern Mountainous Region, Bac Giang ranked fourth, behind Lao Cai, Thai Nguyen and Phu Tho. Among 10 PCI component indices in 2017, Bac Giang province saw 7 out 10 indices advance than 2016. Especially, 4 indices such as Proactivity, Business Support Services, Legal Institutions, Land Access&Tenure witnessed impressive gains from 0.78 to 1.38 points. Dynamism and leadership of the government had the highest increase score with 6.05 points.

Many synchronous solutions

To make this progress, since 2015, Bac Giang Provincial People's Committee issued a plan to improving business and investment environment, improving provincial competitiveness in 2015 and the following years. Over the past years, Bac Giang Provincial Party Committee and People's Committee issued many resolutions and plans in order to clearly assign the departments, branches concerned by their functions and tasks to actively contribute to improving the provincial competitiveness index.

As an advisory body to the Provincial Party Committee, People's Council and People's Committee in the field of planning and investment of the province, on the basis of PCI ranking annual, the Department of Planning and Investment has an evaluation report which reviews each indicator and analyzes clearly the PCI components in the province, in which focusing on analyzing the causes for increasing or decreasing scores to remove to further improve the Bac Giang’s PCI ranking.

Manufacturing and assembling electronic components of S-Connect Vina (Van Trung Industrial Park).

Over the past two years, the leaders of the provincial People's Committees, departments, and provincial Business Association have held regular meetings and dialogues to listen to entrepreneurs expressing their concerns while reflecting on difficulties to resolve. From 2017, the chairman of the provincial People's Committee has held regular meetings with enterprises and investors on the 10th of every month to listen to proposals and suggestions from enterprises, thus directly clearing up answers or directing relevant agencies to give advice and timely solve difficulties facing enterprises. 

Provincial Business Association organizes "Entrepreneur Coffee" programs. Dr. Phung Van Minh, Vice Chairman of the Provincial Business Association said that, in the coffee shop’s cozy space, entrepreneurs and leaders of the province can openly talk about aspirations in administrative reform, applying flexible policies of the Central Committee or change the regulations of the province to benefit the business.

Over the past time, the administrative reform of the province has been promoted with a simple, open and transparent orientation. The provincial People's Committee has put a public administrative centre into operation in September 2016 to reduce time and costs spent on administrative procedures by enterprises and investors. At the same time, many key projects and big projects invested in Bac Giang are being implemented; Site clearance has a positive change. Investment promotion activities of the province have many innovations.

Assessment on Bac Giang's PCI, Bui Thi Thu Thuy, Deputy director of the Department of Planning and Investment affirmed that the increase 3 places in PCI report is in the roadmap to improve the investment and business environment of the province. Compared with some provinces and cities in the region and around the country, Bac Giang has some favorable conditions but to become a factor to attract investment, the province needs to make more efforts. 

In this term, Bac Giang province strives to increase its ranking and reach the group of 20-29 in the PCI Report. The Department of Planning and Investment will actively advise and propose Provincial People’s Committee specific solutions, tasked to each department, board and local area in the province to enhance or maintain the score of the high position index and overcome low position index in the ranking such as: Entry Costs, Informal Charges andTime Costs.

Cao Minh Ngoc